Witchcraft

Beatrix Leslie of Blackcoat

Blackcoat, parish of Newbattle

1661

Wikipedia says the trial in Dalkeith ran from 20 July to 3 August 1661. She was accused of causing a coal pit collapse that killed two girls who had angered her. She was tried among six women in a year in which many witches were prosecuted in the Lothians. The bodies were said to bleed only when Leslie touched them. Under these ordeals she confessed to meeting the Devil twice, though she maintained she had not renounced her baptism.

The health research report on healers and midwives lists her as married, of low social standing, about 84, a midwife and folk healer, and records the outcome as guilty and executed. She was strangled and burned on 3 September 1661, according to Wikipedia. The great Scottish witch hunt of 1661 to 1662 began in Midlothian and East Lothian, where 206 people were accused between April and December 1661.

The pin is set at Newbattle and is approximate.

This site is private property or has no public access. Coordinates shown are rounded and no directions are offered.
Evidence
Contemporary written record
Access
No public access
Location
55.883, -3.067 (Parish-level only, treat as an area)

Sources: Wikipedia, "Beatrix Leslie" [other]; Ring, McHugh, Davidson-Welch and Reed, "Folk Healers and Midwives accused of Witchcraft in Scotland 1563-1736" (RCN Foundation, 2021) [other]; Wikipedia, "Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662" [other]

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